The title of this collection certainly is apropos. Typically, love poetry will be syrupy and sentimental, but
these snapshots of love, by two gifted poets, Magdalena Ball and Carolyn-Howard Johnson, are more realistic and
deal with scenes not usually associated with typical love poems.

In her poem "Great Sky," Ball has this to say about young love: Healthy children /our eyes wide with the cold
/ with landscape / hungry for our future / the warm taste of flesh.

In her poem "Aurora," we see a fresh image of first love: It didn't matter at all / That what you saw was
little more than / Charged particles streaming from the sun / Excited oxygen and nitrogen / In the Earth's
atmosphere / It was all poetry anyway.

Ball's ten poems are titled "The Ocean."

Johnson's poems are titled, "The Heart of a Woman," which is also the title of her first poem, containing these
evocative lines: A heart of a woman is not easily read / as your girl's. Wisdom and doubt are matched /
rings, and a perfect fit, later tight will not / slip from your finger.

These lines from her poem "Another Day" will catch your eye and ear: .....I fold / my husband's shorts the
first year / fresh from the laundry, press / the Munsing to my cheek, / and then to my nose and breathe.

These twenty poems will make you think of love a little differently than many love poems you read. You will
enjoy them.